From: Christopher Cullen (c.cullen@nri.org.uk)
Date: Sat Jan 10 2004 - 07:23:06 EST
I am an academic with research interests in the history of ancient
Chinese mathematics, and I should like to propose the encoding of
traditional Chinese rod numerals.
These represent the arrays of "counting rods" on a counting board as
used in China for complex calculations before the invention of the
abacus. There are eighteen forms in all, representing the numerals one
to nine in two forms which are basically versions of each other with a
90 degrees rotation. One form is used for units, the the other for
tens, then back to the first form for hundreds, and so on. A zero is
represented by a gap in the array. For pictures of these and an
explanatory text, see:
http://www.math.sfu.ca/histmath/China/Beginning/Rod.html
These forms appear in pre-modern mathematical books in China, and in
modern books discussing ancient mathematics. They are not to be
confused with the the related "Hangzhou numerals", which are already
encoded at 3021-303a. It would be a great convenience to have these
as a standard resource rather than having to create a special private
font in order to represent them.
From a private source, I have been told that these forms are neither in
any current Unicode encoding initiative, nor indeed anywhere in the
proposal pipeline. I should therefore be grateful for any comments or
advice that might guide me towards making a formal submission.
Christopher Cullen
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